


It's a Metaphor

by Lexacomeback (TartCherryJuice)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: ALSO LEXA LIVES, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Always, F/F, I suppose yes, Minor Character Death, NEVER NOT, This was supposed to be a 500 word dust off the rust, Underage Drinking Implied?, lol oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TartCherryJuice/pseuds/Lexacomeback
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was supposed to be short.</p>
<p>I had a Modern AU idea while zoning out in calc lecture today and this happened. The title is unimaginative if you catch my drift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

> Alright all I hope you enjoy! And I hope I'll get back into the writing groove again because this... I don't even know what this is it just happened you feel me? Only one read through for mistakes so... yeah!

Lexa always used to keep her door open.

When she was younger, at the age where she would tell everyone anything that crossed her mind, babbling on and on with slurred words and half sentences, her parents knew to keep her door cracked open. She never liked the idea of being closed in, strange fears of permeant enclosure prominent in her thoughts – even as a toddler.

As she grew older, it became more of a practical habit. With her entryway wide open she could feel a nice cross breeze from the window out in the hall. Her older sister sometimes blasted pop music from her room a few doors down and Lexa would listen intently from her own bed, trying to memorize the electronic beat because maybe if she knew what the big kids were listening to, it would make her cooler. When her parents let them adopt a family cat, Lexa would love when the small critter would slink into her room in the middle of the night and curl herself into the crook of Lexa’s knees.

Lexa hardly ever felt the need to have absolute privacy in her room. That is, until she got her first girlfriend.

When she was fifteen, Lexa met Costia out on the basketball court. Costia was all long limbs and root beer lip gloss, bruised elbows and random karaoke sessions in the locker room. She was fearless and feared.

At least by Lexa.

The first time she kissed her, Lexa’s hands had been shaking so much, her shoulders so tense, that she was scared Costia would pull away and laugh at her. Only a few seconds in, that fear bubbled up into her throat when Costia had begun to pull away. However, it settled down somewhere deep and warm in her stomach when Costia only moved her own trembling hands to the back of her neck and began to rub her thumb lightly at her hairline. Lexa nearly purred at the contact. Smiling, Lexa had taken a moment to breathe the other girl in, before reattaching their lips.

Lexa’s mother had told her later that night that the same house rules apply to her as they did to her older sister: if they were with a boyfriend or girlfriend in their room, doors had to be open. She had grumbled for a bit, but eventually conceded.

The next few years were the best of Lexa’s life. She worked hard in school, worked hard in basketball, and worked hard in her relationship with Costia. She worked and worked and worked and she loved it. She loved the feeling of succeeding, loved feeling like she could take on the world, and she loved Costia. Truly and absolutely.

Looking back, it almost seems like a dream. Like, maybe Lexa had never actually felt that way. Maybe it all had been an elaborate daydream.

It was New Year’s Eve during Lexa’s senior year in high school and her parents were having their annual party at their house. As her and her sister had grown up, they had started inviting their own friends and would retreat to the basement and have their own little party. It eventually became a kind of competition between the siblings to see who could steal the most booze from the party upstairs. Her sister, Anya, always ended up winning somehow and that year had been no different. It was only nine o’clock and Anya had already stolen an entire bottle of Pinnacle and two bottles of beer without anyone noticing.

_“Cheater!” Lexa yelled over the roar of applause when Anya held the vodka in the air triumphantly for all to see in the dark and crowded basement._

_Anya glared in her direction at the accusation and pushed through the crowd of teenagers and young adults toward her sister. “What makes you say that?”_

_When Anya was close enough, Lexa plucked the bottle from Anya’s grasp and studied the label with a raised brow. “You bought this earlier today, didn’t you?”_

_Anya laid her hand over her chest in mock offense, “I would never. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I did.”_

_Anya quickly stole the bottle back and began unscrewing the cap. Lexa scowled and Anya chuckled at her pouty lips._

_“You’re just grumpy that your girl isn’t here yet,” Anya finished and Lexa didn’t have a reply because – well because she was right. Costia had said she would be there over an hour ago._

_Lexa didn’t know that an hour and twenty minutes before that conversation with her sister, Costia had been driving her car. She had been on her way over to Lexa’s house for the party when another car had slid across a heavy patch of ice and slammed into Costia’s own vehicle._

_Ten minutes before the ball dropped, Lexa received a call. Costia’s sobbing mother was on the other end of the line. It took a few minutes before the other woman was able form a coherent sentence. It took no time at all, however, for the words to wash over Lexa when the woman was finally able to croak out, “Costia is dead.”_

_Costia was dead. Lexa’s girlfriend was dead. The girl she loved more than anything in the world was dead. The impact from the other car had killed her instantly._

_Lexa dropped the phone from her ear, the rubber case catching on her palm before slamming on the ground. She took a breath, hot and agitating against her full lungs. The lights from the TV were too bright, blinking as the New Year’s Ball flashed across the screen. The announcers on the TV continued to talk, her friends crowded around her continued to talk, and Lexa was pretty sure that her sister was trying to talk to her too._

_She was overstimulated. Everything was too loud. Her eardrums, her head, her heart could not handle it – so she ran. Lexa ran up the stairs from the basement and found herself surrounded by old family friends. Some of them glanced her way and shot her smiles, but it was still too loud, so she kept running. She ran up another flight of stairs, tripping once in the pitch black hall, and stumbled toward her room._

_She staggered inside, her momentum flinging her toward her wooden desk across the room. Her knees knocked against the drawers underneath and she gripped the hard wood to stop herself from falling, the sharp edge digging into the creases of her fingers._

_She could still hear the party. She could still hear the people who didn’t just have their lives ripped apart. Her entire body was shaking, unsure of how to handle the sudden onslaught of emotions. Her eyes began to blur and a sob built at the edge of her lips, so she did the first thing her scrambled brain screamed at her to do. She lunged for her door and slammed it shut._

_It didn’t open again for two days._

Lexa looks up at the ceiling of her new dorm room, trying to decide what might have stained the small patch in the corner a dark rusty brown color. After a few moments, she sighs in frustration and sits up on her bed, glancing toward the other side of the small rectangular dorm room.

It is completely bare save for the desk, bedframe, and waterproof mattress provided by the university. Lexa’s Resident Assistant had told her when she was moving in that her roommate had pulled out at the last minute and they hadn’t found anyone to fill her spot yet. He had continued to tell her that since it was a freshman dorm, she might not even end up having a roommate this semester.

“Lucky you,” he had said, dark hair brushing over his eyebrows as he smiled kindly at her.

She sighs again. _Yeah, lucky me._

She had been looking forward to having a roommate, someone she could share her space with, make friends with. Or if nothing else, someone to make her feel a little less lonely.

A loud knock on her door startles her from her thoughts.

Lexa propels herself off of her bed, the cheap bedspread now wrinkled, and is glad that she had decided to put socks on when her feet hit the (no doubt cold) linoleum floor. After a few long strides, she grabs the handle and carefully opens the door a few inches.

She had expected to see her RA again, or perhaps her mother coming back for one last hug even though they had left a few hours ago. What she didn’t expect was a blonde girl she had never seen before looking at her expectantly.

Opening the door wider, Lexa hesitates before greeting her politely, “Hello.”

“Hi,” the girl smiles and clears her throat before continuing. “I’m Clarke. I just wanted to say hello, I live next door and saw you moving in earlier.”

The blonde gestures casually around the hall and Lexa pokes her head out of the entryway to get a better look. She sees many other students moving up and down the narrow walkway, huge carts full of essentials. And some not-so-essentials.

Lexa looks back to the stranger, her neighbor – Clarke, “I’m Lexa.”

There is a beat of silence as Clarke glances behind Lexa into the room beyond. She not doubt notices the empty side of the room before looking back to Lexa. “No roommate yet?”

“Not yet,” Lexa shrugs. “The RA said I might not get one at all. Apparently mine pulled out a few days ago.”

Clarke’s eyes widen, “Well if my roommate snores, I guess I know where to go.”

The blonde means it as a joke, Lexa knows, but that doesn’t stop the small glimmer of hope from igniting in her chest. Lexa sticks her head out of the doorway again, looking for someone coming or going into the rooms next to hers.

When she doesn’t see what she’s looking for, Lexa turns her head to look back at Clarke and asks, “Is your roommate here yet?”

“Not yet,” Clarke answers, linking her fingers together at her front.

There is another pause and Lexa takes the moment to look over the other girl properly. She has a long flowing muted red top, light blue jean shorts, and black flip flops to make up her outfit. Her long blonde hair is pulled back into a half ponytail, but it’s the shy smile that garners most of Lexa’s attention. She has a funny feeling that the portrait of this nervous girl is going seared into her long term memory, so Lexa makes an impulsive decision.

“Do you want to come hang here with me? I was bored out of my mind before you knocked.” With each word that comes out of Lexa’s mouth, Clarke’s smile becomes less unsure and more genuine, so she keeps going. “I’ve got a TV and extra bedsheets if you want to sit on the bed.”

Clarke unclasps her hands and moves them to her back pockets as she rocks back on her heels momentarily, “Yeah, sure! I’m just gonna put the rest of my clothes away and grab my ID real quick and I’ll be over.”

Clarke points halfheartedly somewhere to her left before starting to walk in the same direction as her gesture. Lexa watches her as she slides her key into the handle, struggling for a moment before successfully unlocking it. She shoots Lexa one last fleeting smile before she disappears into her room.

Stepping back into her own room, Lexa lets the door close as she walks over toward her bed and crouches down to pull out the pale blue plastic bin full of linens. She only has to dig for a moment before she finds her spare bedsheets and plops them on top of her own bed. Running her hand over the smooth sheets, Lexa looks up at the newly decorated wall at the head of her bedframe.

It’s full of pictures taken all throughout her life, strung up like personal fairy lights of her own soul. There are several of her with her whole family, even more with just her and Anya, and many of her with her friends from home. A few are candid, a few are posed, and a few are somewhere in between. They are all happy and free except for one. There’s only one that makes her heart clench painfully. One that she tried to hide in a sea of similar smiling faces, but now she realizes there was no point.

Costia’s face is grinning at her, teeth bright and dark skin shining from sweat, her cheek pressed against Lexa’s own flushed one. They had just won regionals and Costia had stolen her phone claiming that they, “needed to capture the moment, Cap!”

“I miss you,” Lexa reaches out, running her index finger slowly over the faux polaroid, before letting her arm drop and dangle loosely at her side.

Lexa closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, willing the hole in her chest to fill itself again. When she opens her eyes again, she forces herself to look away from the pictures and instead glances toward the door. Lexa hesitates, biting her lip, before slowly walking toward the door and opening it. Lexa quickly kicks the wooden doorstop on the ground in between the frame and the heavy wooden door before releasing the knob and moving back into the room to make the other bed.

She hears the heavy door bounce on the wedge once as she fans the cover sheet.

Twice as she reaches to push the sheet under the mattress.

Three times as she pulls the sheet tight.

Then it settles quietly, just ajar as she smooths out the wrinkles.


End file.
